A.M. Vitals: Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Melanoma Drug Improves Survival

By Katherine Hobson

Extending Life: When combined with chemo, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s experimental melanoma drug ipilimumab helped extend the life of patients with metastatic melanoma who’d received no previous treatments, Dow Jones Newswires reports. The FDA is scheduled to announce this week whether it has approved the drug — which would be sold under the brand name Yervoy — for use in metastatic melanoma patients who have already been treated with another therapy, DJN says.

The Cost of MS: Prescription-drug prices are rising, as we’ve reported. Today Bloomberg News highlights one disease for which that is especially true — multiple sclerosis, where the price of therapies rose by as much as 39% in 2010. The cost of those drugs is becoming similar to that of cancer therapies, running as high as $48,000 a year, BN reports.

Change of Plans: Merck and Sanofi-Aventis have reversed their decision to combine their animal-health businesses, saying the regulatory hurdles and complexity of the proposed transaction were too great, the WSJ reports. Animal health, now a more than $19 billion market, is projected to grow at about a 5% annual rate, making it an attractive business for Pfizer and Lilly as well as Merck and Sanofi.

Pushing for Pills: Psychologists want more states to give them the power to prescribe medications for mental-health problems, which could alleviate a shortage of psychiatrists, Kaiser Health News reports. Two states, plus the military and the Indian Health Service, already permit psychologists — who have doctorates and don’t go to medical school — to prescribe drugs after receiving additional training in psychopharmacology, and six states are considering whether to do the same, KHN says.